Two big names in Chinese banking have emerged as possible buyers of German ship finance giant, DVB Bank.
Bank of China and ICBC are expected to lodge bids for DVB shortly. DVB’s parent DZ Bank has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a sale of the ship financier.
DVB’s possible sale follows hot on the heels of another big name in German ship finance, HSH Nordbank, being sold to two American private equity concerns.
Chinese ship finance has rapidly replaced the gap left by many departing European banks in recent years.
“The fact is shipping is not short of available loans, you just have to look east. The taps get turned on to keep yards busy,” Splash’s finance columnist Dagfinn Lunde wrote in a recent article carried on this site.
